


Sifted Feelings

by EverybodyWantsToRuleTheWorld



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 1980s, Azkaban, Christmas, Cold, I'm Bad At Titles, Lonely Man of Winter, M/M, POV Remus Lupin, Sirius Black Free from Azkaban, Sufjan Stevens - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:22:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21716056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EverybodyWantsToRuleTheWorld/pseuds/EverybodyWantsToRuleTheWorld
Summary: "But he was alone. And maybe Sirius could help him, maybe they could be thirty somethings living together in the middle of Fucking Nowhere, stealing Christmas trees on Christmas as a ritual until their backs ache of old age and their hair became too white to provide cover in the black night."
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Kudos: 6
Collections: RS Small Gifts 2019





	Sifted Feelings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blanketed_in_stars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blanketed_in_stars/gifts).



Recipient:BLANKETED_IN_STARS

Wish you a merry Christmas! Hope you enjoy!

December, 1981

Christmastime

Remus tried his best to not cry. The sniffs were getting hard to hold back, the stinging in his eyes was hard to ignore anymore, the trembling of his lower lip was increasing its frequency by the second.

Yet, did the tears fall?

No, Remus wouldn't let them. They would only make him tired- of memories, of the past, of everything he wished to forget, and of course, of Sirius. The only thing which he wanted to forget the most, to let go of all the impressions he had left engraved in Remus' heart and mind.

He quickly rubbed his nose on his sleeve, its fabric almost turning Remus' nose red due to friction. He momentarily thought of what he would do now? How could he go on like this-cold, shattered, burdened and lonely? So, so lonely.

He'd fix himself some tea, of course. And even if he was feeling too...listless, he could always lay in bed and wish for an everlasting limbo to take over his being. Yes, that would be the ideal Christmas Eve he could have. After all that had happened to him, cheer was the last word in his dictionary of life. It had been more than three months now and Remus was still as lonely and ragged as a beggar outside a church. Is it really true, that once a man loses the sole purpose his whole life had been destined for, his life becomes worth nothing?

He stood up slowly, deliberately trying to break his chain of thought- not liking it one bit where it was leading to. It wasn't about fear or rejection now anymore, no. it was about existing now. It was about moving on. Oh, how he hated those two words.

Going to the kitchen, Remus quietly put on the kettle, realizing that he was running out of clean cups. His unwillingness to do dishes, a chore religiously performed by Sirius back when they- back when.

Back when things weren't so quiet, so empty. Remus rolled up his sleeves, the sudden strike of cold air making him rethink of the other option he had. Mentally cursing at himself, he got hold of a scrubber, and went to work. Dirty dishes needed to be cleaned. At least they needed to when doing nothing made you hear your own sobs and become aware of your pain, made you aware of how every small sound was awfully magnified by the gargantuan quiet that prevailed now.

Remus was down to two glasses, three plates and one spoon- when there was a sudden tap at his kitchen window. Startled, Remus looked up, to find a magnificent tawny owl staring at him with accusatory eyes for not letting it in. Looking at the owl, Remus instantly dreaded opening the window and letting it in. Or rather, letting in the news which the owl was delivering to him. No, it was better if he'd get his work at hand done and leave the owl at an unvisited corner of his mind. It would eventually fly away. Nodding at himself, he got back to work.

He sighed, the owl had now changed its gaze to pitiful and in need of some kindness to be bestowed upon him. Finally, Remus gave in, and let the owl in. He had been ignoring the owl fine enough, and had taken his ready tea in a clean cup and was ready to leave the kitchen, but something stopped him. He couldn't say what exactly it was, but Remus let the poor owl in. It wasn't, after all, the owl's fault that Remus' life was so buggered up.

It was a letter of course, it looked like it was written on a parchment thousand of years old, stashed away in a clamped, dreary space. But Remus didn't read it. He had given up on letters, these monstrous carriers of but words- mere words. The underlying tone of doubt, of anger, of abandonment, everything was apparent behind the words written on a letter. Remus didn't throw it away, but he kept it somewhere where he couldn't remember whenever he'd think about finding and reading it. So, Remus hid it.

Remus went back to his tea. this was Christmassy for him enough- a cup of tea, that had gotten cold in the blink of an eye, a lone rocking chair which creaked more than rocked, a window, with its panes perpetually closed, right in front of the chair and a half visible reflection on the window pane of a worn out werewolf, his eyes staring far into the distance as the winter sun sunk behind the horizon, his shoulders weighed down with the intangible weight of a painful and apparently, meaningless existence.

\-----------

December, 1995

Christmas.

"And you're positive?"  
  
"Absolutely, I am. It was the one thing that kept me going all these years."

"It's still kind of hard to get my head around. Here I was thinking that Azkaban was the most protected prison in the whole of Wizarding world."

"Well, I'm the most talented prisoner of Azkaban in the whole Wizarding world, so."

Remus couldn't utter any words for a second. There it was, right in front of his eyes- a heart breaking flash of the old Sirius. The twentysomething Sirius trying to crack Remus up after he'd lost yet another job because of his 'condition'. The confident, witty Sirius he'd dared to-

Remus took hold of the reigns of his thoughts right there. No need for acknowledging the past, it had never done him any good anyway.

It never did.

"Have you seen Harry recently?"

"Yes, all that Triwizard Tournament fiasco. Harry's positive about Voldemort's resurgence."

"Yes, he is. I always wonder why they won’t let the poor boy have a normal life, a normal schooling, for once. He's an exceptional student too- a delight to teach." Remus took a moment to remember his months as the DADA Professor at Hogwarts, and how he was still getting used to it. "And a troublemaker- just like his father."

"Better- his godfather." Sirius smiled through his bony cheeks. He was attempting at humor to break the tension in the winter air around them. However, that word always brought back 1981. The year he'd officially wanted to burn off every calendar, every chronology. So much had been lost, all because of that one fucking word. Godfather. Instead of saving and protecting them, it had turned their lives upside down for the worst.

Fourteen years and Remus still had to take a moment to reassemble his pieces- always threatening him to fall apart. He had gathered them piece by piece, poorly filled in cracks after cracks. He couldn't risk breaking it all down and as if life wasn't yet done playing a major joke on him, here was Sirius, sitting in flesh and blood, poor bastard trying to act as everything is just as it was so, so very bad. Didn't he realize that some things things weren't meant to go back to how they were?

He never did.

"Yes, of course. Who but the notoriously famous Godfather of his, am I right?" Remus tried to smile back, to comfort Sirius and allow him to calm his evidently wrecked nerves. "I'm going to make some tea. Why don't you get cleaned up and we could do something?"

"Do something?" Sirius asked, that old childlike wonder flashing by.

"Yes, we could go Christmas tree shopping?" Remus lamely suggested. They'd gone "Christmas tree shopping" for four times the past week. They never brought back a tree, considering that Remus never usually had the money.

"I thought that after spending two weeks in this nowhere, I'd get used to the ceaseless boardroom, but it still astounds me really." Sirius tried looking disappointed, but Remus knew he wasn't actually complaining. If anything, the way Sirius' eyes lit when an old lady waved at him in the street or when a shopkeeper asks him how his day went- his eyes go blank for a millisecond, as if he were sucked back into those twelve dreary years of loneliness, impending mania and a raging storm inside. Then suddenly, he'd give his best smile, return the compliments himself, and look heavenwards.

A trapped man finally thanking whoever was up there for his freedom. A thankful, grateful man.

"You know, Remus, I think we can do something that's not boring and mildly captivating to my imagination."

Remus felt a painful jolt through his heart when he heard that sly, suggestive tone. Merlin, how many years had it been?

And at that moment, as he looked at the glint in Sirius' eyes, sitting across him at the rickety kitchen table, sipping cold tea, Remus couldn't help but nod silently, urging him to go on. Sirius didn't look thirty seven.

"How about we steal a Christmas tree?"

"No. Absolutely not." Remus' classic reply to all of Sirius' foolhardy, brash suggestions till date. "We could-"

"-get killed, I know. But Remus, this town’s just so, so-"

"-shitty, I know. But I couldn't care less. Dumbledore gave me-"

"-A responsibility, I know. But don't you realize how badly I've wanted to feel, I don't know, alive? Remus I'm thankful for the freedom I've got, and am highly indebted to you, but what's life-"

"-without a little risk?" They both finished at the same time, their tones varying and expressing polar opposite emotions.

Remus was quiet for a moment, as Sirius eagerly kept on staring at him. He quietly got up, took hold of both of their cups, and waded his way through feelings, and emotions, as he finally approached the sink.

Remus was quietly folding his sleeves, not knowing what to say. He couldn't believe it'd been so long since he'd heard Sirius utter those words- that bloody famous mantra of his- always locking horns with danger. The said adventurer was still sitting, staring at Remus' back, and thing and rethinking about something.

"If you want I can do this dishes." A soft voice came up from behind Remus as he began rinsing the cups. He tried not to focus at the voice, but rather at the job at hand.

"No, it's fine." Remus half-turned his face to smile lightly, holding his breath. Once his face was fully away from Sirius, did he let it out. He hoped that Sirius wouldn't have noticed the lie straight through him. After all, he didn't like washing dishes, rather, he borderline despised it.

He always did.

  
  
"Fuck. It's freezing."

"Really? I thought it was only December. Seriously, living in the northern hemisphere has messed up your thermoregulation pretty badly."

"You're not funny."

"I learn from the best." Remus turned to raise his eyebrows at Sirius, amusement dancing on his face.

Currently, they were crouching behind the fences of Joe's Tree Garden, the only local supplier of Christmas trees. This guy, Joe, lived in a wooden cabin right at the center of his tree plantation, and the chances of him waking up to the sound of a tree being felled in a remote corner of his unimaginably vast land seemed feeble. So, Remus agreed.

Turning behind to check if his car was standing right where it was supposed to, Remus quietly shoved the keys in his pocket.

The partly wrecked car standing at some distance from the fence, was Remus' only belonging, nay, indulgence, that he could afford. Remus never did have a thing for automobiles, but this car was a gift from one of his previous owners, a rich but kind, painfully alone old man, who was nearing his death during the time Remus was working for him as a temporary caretaker. He knew that the old man liked him, mostly because he always used to listen attentively to all his tales from the Second World War, a topic they'd covered in fourth year muggle studies back at Hogwarts.

Like all his previous jobs, he had to give up this one too, but for a change, it was the inevitable, yet peaceful death of the owner and not Remus getting fired for his 'unexplained absences' that caused the termination of his job. Remus had received the 1969 Ford Cortina (declared to be a 'designated piece of junk' by the owner himself) at the man's funeral, where the only people present were Remus, the cook, the gardener and the man's middle aged son who lived in America with his family.

It was somewhere around eleven, and silence was drooping over the whole town. Sometimes, Remus would find it desperately hard to believe- how he'd come from being a twenty one year old Londoner to a thirty-six year old resident of a place called nowhere at the end of nowhere, located in, well, nowhere.

But now, with a shivering and an evidently excited Sirius sitting beside him, their devious plan to steal a Christmas tree occupying most of their mind, Remus felt that maybe this wasn't so bad, after all. Sirius was still thin, but he wasn't wiry and pale like he'd looked last year in the shack. No bones jutting out, no unnecessary facial hair, no holed out cheeks. The only thing still there was the melancholy in his eyes, the creeping emptiness that snuck up on Remus often from nowhere.

"Watcher thinkin' about, mate?"

"Nothing." Remus lied. He looked at his watch, and re ad the time on it- eleven forty-two. "Come on, it's time."

Crouching low, the two of them started down a dirt path, which obviously led deeper into Joe's land. There were trees everywhere- their countless heights and sizes offering Remus a thousand options to choose from. "What kind of tree would you like?" He whispered to Sirius, who was following him.

"Tall." Sirius whispered back, articulation impeccable.

"There's this thing called a 'ceiling' back home, Sirius."

"There's a little thing called 'Christmas spirit' too. But I guess the ceiling is more important." Sirius retorted.

"Yes. Yes, it is." Remus turned around to laugh, not realizing that Sirius was following him more closely than he'd anticipated. Remus' face was right in front of Sirius', and there wasn't a sound to be heard around for a second. It was only the moon, with its starry entourage, there to stare at its two children, surrounded by the quiet pain and yearning that life had bestowed them with.

"Err...err." Sirius stupidly muttered, causing Remus to draw back suddenly, realizing it was neither the time nor the place to stroll down memory lane. Focus back at the job at hand.

"Okay, so we need a medium height, thick but not too thick Christmas tree from Joe's garden. And if you find some decorations lying around, don't forget to pick them up too."

"On it." Sirius grinned in the darkness, and turned around, heading towards the far end of the garden. Remus took the other direction, as he submerged his hands in the pockets of his coat, wishing that he could find the perfect tree soon enough and get out of here. The faster they get this over with- the better.

  
  
"This has got to be a joke. It's been at least an hour."

"Well, I'm not joking!"

"You couldn't find a single tree? One medium height, thick-but-not-too-thick Christmas tree?" Remus had disbelief and shock written all over his face.

"No, I couldn't find a medium height, thick-but-not-too-thick Christmas tree. And neither did you!" Sirius retorted back. "And who the fuck puts up so many restrictions on the dimensions of a fucking tree? It's a tree, not a customized wand!"

"Well, I'm not going to be sorry for asking for anything but a perfect tree."

"Remus, no tree's perfect. Look around you, there's some that are too tall. Some that are too short. Some with less leaves. Some with more." Sirius sighed, finding no end to this silly banter. Who even started this anyway?"

"I'm going to find one." Remus remained adamant, as Sirius had expected.

"Fine, Remus. Let's exchange our dominions, you go look where I previously did and I'll do the same. And maybe, one of us ends up finding the perfect tree after all." Sirius suggested, his left eyebrow raising itself to put forth his question.

"Alright, we could try that." That seemed like a better idea than freezing their arses off and not having an idea. "Let's do this then."

"Or-" Sirius suddenly had a lightning struck expression on his face. "We could definitely get the perfect tree without all that searching."

"Really? And that tree is going to just appear right in front of us."

"Your sarcasm makes me want to dump you right here in the snow." Sirius retorted. "And trust me, I can do that."

"Of course, you can." Remus was getting impatient. They had finally agreed upon something when Sirius got a new, hopefully doable idea at the last minute.

"We could steal the one kept in Joe's lobby."

"What!"

"We could steal the one-"

"No, I heard you fine enough the first time, I just can't believe if your stupidity is the result of a freak accident when you were a child or is it congenital?" Remus hissed. He knew Sirius wouldn't mind the comment about poor hereditary qualities- it was just a satisfying defense for him for acting the way that he did.

_"Oh, I can't help it mate, my mum's mental too."_

_"I can't help but hit you whenever you open your mouth, Pete. That's how we deal with disappointments in our family."_

_"I can't help but shag your cousin Mary, James. That's exactly what we do in our family. Cousins."_

_"I can't help but fall in love with you, Moony. I have a large enough store of it in my heart for you considering I never had to spend it on my family."_

"Mate, hear me out. That tree standing in Joe's lobby is of the perfect size, perfect height, and it's decorated already!" Sirius excitedly stated.

Remus put a hand over his face in exasperation, still not believing that Sirius had the balls to give such a disastrously ominous idea after having suggested to steal a Christmas tree. Talk about holy spirits.

The tree that Sirius was so vehemently in support of stealing, stood in the center of a small lobby where shoppers waited for their trees to be felled and paid for it once the tree was loaded in Joe's truck, ready to be delivered to their homes. The tree, no doubt, was extremely beautifully decorated, and had a cardboard cut-out of Santa holding a placard, stating - "Ho-mongous discounts up to 35% off!" There was a glass-cut star precariously placed on top of the tree, and the whole tree itself looked like it was a present wrapped in the most elaborate way.

The problem was, that the lobby was actually the ground floor of his wooden cabin. On the first floor lived Joe- with his cousin and his girlfriend. Talk about stealing right under someone's nose.

"No, way. No fucking way." Remus sighed, massaging his temples. "Sirius, if by any chance we end up waking them up, we might as well end up dead."

"You're just being dramatic."

"Am I, Sirius? Look, it's the fucking middle of nowhere. People wouldn't care if two literally unknown men were to disappear suddenly one day, alright? And there's this small-town rumor about Joe and his cousin running several back businesses. So, yeah, I don't want to mess with these people. Coming here was daft enough."

"Look, Remus, you're focusing too much on the negatives. Look at the bright side- we could finally have a Christmas tree." Sirius persisted.

"And as if that tree would somehow magically make everything okay, right?" Remus spat, not realizing that his tone had risen dangerously. "Sirius, I don't know if you've realized this, but I've been paying prices for your doomed shenanigans for a long time, and now, please don't make me repeat my past mistakes again, because I'm done with being internally battered and bruised, okay?"

Sirius did shut up, which was good. But Remus' breath was evening out, his patience was returning, which was bad. Very, bad. He realized too late what he'd just said, but now, he couldn't take it back. "I should apologize for what I said. I'm sorry." He sighed, his shoulders developing a mean slump.

"You're right- this was a stupid idea anyways." Sirius muttered, his eyes downcast. "I should've known better- I'm sorry." Sirius turned around, and started walking back to the fence.

Remus knew that now he couldn't say or do anything that could cheer the air up, so he gave a shrug of submission to the universe, and followed behind Sirius. Replaying the words he'd spoken again and again, he still couldn't figure out why he'd lost his shit all of a sudden. Maybe it was Sirius' presence, or maybe it was the nearing full moon. Or maybe Remus really needed to get all that inner burden off his chest- and it was high time that he did so.

"No, Sirius!" Remus finally caught up. "Let's just not get caught up in words. Alright?"

Sirius nodded, dejected, "Remus, you don't have to do it. I get it, the idea was stupid anyways."

"Sirius, it was me who lost their daring. Have you forgotten the good old days? And aren't you the one always saying- 'What's life without a little risk?'" Remus tried desperately.

"Remus, honestly. Let's just go back home." Sirius started walking faster towards the fence.

Remus realized that he was about to give up and follow Sirius back, but he didn't want to. Given, the idea was stupid and foolhardy-but it was something. Remus had gotten tired of quietness. Loneliness, no. Despite Sirius' presence, the loneliness was still there, in a hidden territory of his being. But quietness suddenly vanished. It had been slowly vanishing since two weeks ago when a shivering, filthy and an extremely unkempt Sirius had arrived at his doorstep. It was vanishing in the sounds that had been echoing in his house recently. The sounds of more than one set of cups and plates in the sink, more than one runs of the shower every morning, more than one side of the couch being used, more than one inhabitant of his shabby, little and poorly maintained house.

And if this plan of Sirius' was going to further cause the quiet to ebb away, Remus was in. Catching up with Sirius, Remus unknowingly held Sirius' hand to stop him back.

"Sirius, listen. "Head slowly turning around, Sirius still wasn't looking up at Remus.

"Come on, mate. I don't know what I was thinking. I guess, this small town life had made me slow and a bit of a plodder, yeah?" Remus sighed. "In fact-" he mock whispered, "-I think I might be starting to develop that old man smell."

A small smile fighting its way on Sirius' face, he slowly looked back up, "I don't think that you have any old-man smell."

"Well, you're the only one who thinks that. Last night before going to sleep, do you know what I noticed?"

"What?"

"I was wearing my reading glasses upside down." Remus tried looking serious, "My great grandfather used to wear his glasses upside down! I might as well stop shaving my balls and wear my socks inside out."

"Now you're just trying to make me laugh."

"Is it working?"

"A little bit, yes."

"Good. So, do you want to get yourself a merry little Christmas, or not?"

"Well, I guess a merry little Christmas wouldn't hurt much. “Sirius finally let that peeking smile spread full blown across his face. Remus tried not to punch his fist into the air. A feeling of pride filed him up the moment he realized that the cause of Sirius' smile was Remus. It made him, in simpler terms, happy.

It always did.

"Also, do you really think shaving the balls is a sign of being young?" Standing alone in the night, surrounded by Merlin knows how many trees, the two old friends finally allowed laughter to take its course through both their throats, forgetting everything about a little glitch of a fight they'd had not moments ago.

No matter what people say, some things really don't change. Not even time can get them to change.

  
  
"Be careful." Remus whispered. "Your foot was about to knock that Santa down.

"Shit, sorry." Sirius whispered back. Trying to lift the tree a little higher, given that his back was starting to ache. Sirius didn't realize that his attempt at doing so took Remus by surprise, as he suddenly lifted his elbows too.

There was a piercing noise of thousand metallic objects clattering on the floor.

"Fuck!" Remus looked about frantically. He had knocked down the donation box. That typical glass box, where people left a small amount of change for the world's most ambiguous causes, all out of the Christmas spirit of donating to charity.

Moreover, 'Donate for people battling a deformed pinna', or, 'Save the dying shoe polish business of England' were good money making schemes too.

The metallic clanging of coins against the floor was like the thunderclap of horror to Remus' ears.

"Fuck, fuck!" Remus started yelling now. "Someone's coming!"

Someone was coming. Remus could hear noises from above. Now they were both going to be killed by shady Joe and his even shadier cousin.

"Remus, Remus come on!" Sirius' eyes were wide, caution written in them. "We have to make a run for it. Now!" He tried lifting the tree, but somehow, the tree was growing heavier by the passing second.

"We're doing to die!" Remus felt like he could have a heart attack, any second now. "We're going to die and I haven't even been to New York, Sirius. I haven't read all of Eliot's works and I haven't even seen Harry become of age."

"Okay, stop hyperventilating." Sirius tried to convey his emotions by his eyes that were as wide as saucers. "We need to run, Remus. Do you understand?" Sirius started picking up his pace, Remus closely following behind him, hoping that the sudden brightness of a light being turned on upstairs was his hallucination or not. He quickly got into action, as they headed out, the adrenaline helping along the way.

The moment they had stepped out of the lobby, and were about to rush to the fence, someone from above them started telling-

"Bastards! Where are you rushing off too?" Remus dared not look behind him, he was pretty sure that the shrill voice ringing through the winter night was none other than that of Joe's girlfriend. "Joe they-ah takin' away ah tree, Joe. They-ah takin' away ah tree!"

"I'm coming! Don't let them get any farther." There was yelling and the sound of footsteps thundering down the stairs.

Remus was sweating and painting heavily, not understanding why in the hell would things have to go down so disastrously. He looked at Sirius, whose sole focus was fixed at the fence they'd come in from. Trying to lift his end of the tree and lessen the burden on Sirius' still thin form, Remus finally started to increase his speed, bringing his agility to real use.

"Here. I'll take the lead." Remus offered, as Sirius silently nodded, his hair and eyes wild, yet he was making no sound. They were both terrified and it was a situation of either fight or flight. And both Remus and Sirius were done with fighting for the rest of their lifetimes anyway.

There were heavy footsteps following them close behind, yet it was easy to hide them and dodge. Joe's land was pretty large, and Remus couldn't have been more thankful for the night, providing them with ample cover.

Unexpectedly, there was a shout, "If you don't want to die, just stop right there" Remus looked around, to see if Joe and this cousin were nearing them, when another voice shouted, “I had done paying a shitload to get that tree made, and now some thieves aren't going to take it away from me, you hear that?"

Increasing their pace, the fence seemed to approach closer and closer. But so we're the two angry owners. Finally arriving at their destination, Remus quietly whispered, "You start the car, I'll load the tree. Let's go."

"Will that thing be able to bear the weight?" Sirius looked skeptical.

"Should've thought of that ages ago." Remus tried not to show his uncertainty. "Let's go, we don't have time for this contemplation."

Quietly nodding, Sirius caught the keys Remus threw at him, and dashed to the driver's seat. Remus, on the other hand, was painfully aware of the tree's weight and the oncoming owners who were out for their blood and maybe, bones too. He dragged the tree, and lifting its one end placed it in the back seat, and tried to drag in the rest of it. The tree was fitting in fine, when suddenly, Remus felt a resistance. The tree wouldn't go in any further, and there was about a foot or two of the trunk edging out from the seat.

"Fuck it." Remus thought, when suddenly, the light of two torches pierced through his retina. He left the door opened, and foolishly looked back from where the lights were approaching.

"Come here, bastards!" Two forms of large, big men started to materialise in front of his eyes.

"Remus, come on! The engine's running!" Sirius' voice brought Remus out of his petrified state.

Running and getting into the passenger seat, the moment Remus shut the door, he could listen to the sound of something shattering the glass of the back door, which was left open. Remus prayed it wasn't a bullet.

The starting of the engine was the most beautiful sound to Remus' ears at that moment. Looking out of his window, he saw Joe approaching the fence, jumping over, and running being their car, his cousin not far behind.

"Come back, you-you thieves."

"Come back!"

Remus turned back and looked at Sirius, who was steering the car, his full attention at finding the quickest path and getting out of there. Stepping on the accelerator, the car started gaining momentum, as Remus saw the two running forms that were chasing them, diminish into the night in the rear-view mirror.

"That was close." Sirius sighed, nodding his head in disbelief.

"Are you kidding me? That wasn't even close. That was right in the middle of it!" Remus answered, his adrenaline slowly wearing off. He turned back to check up on the tree. "Tree's fine, if that's any consolation."

"It's consolation enough." Sirius smiled lightly.

And then, when Remus was sure they were a good distance away from their impending deaths, Remus allowed himself to laugh. Hysterically. His voice was probably loud enough for the rest of the world to hear, but in that moment, sitting in his wrecked car with a Christmas tree laying in his backseat and a shattered window, Remus couldn't care less.

Sirius, who was staring at Remus, reminded himself to bring his attention back at the road, quietly asking, "When was the last time you had laughed like this?"

"I can't remember." Remus shut his eyes, knowing full well that soon his stomach would start aching too.

"Well, keep on laughing because I think you're doing a good enough job of expressing the hysteria, given the night we'd had, for the both of us."

"I will, mate. I will."

Sirius couldn't help but join in the laughter, however, it was nothing compared to Remus'. But then again, he found Remus' laughter incomparable to all else.

He always did.

\----------

25th December, 1995

Remus' house.

  
"Music?"

"Sure."

"Any requests?"

"Just, um...Any stuff from back in the day."

"Back in our day, you mean?" Remus tried not to show his smile.

"Yes, maybe I do." Sirius didn't hide his own smile though, he was just too happy to sit in front of their tree and have himself a jolly little Christmases. The tree was looking out of place in Remus' house, it seemed more lavish than Remus' most esteemed belongings. To be specific, the tree beat Remus' electric heater, the most expensive of Remus' belongings in his house before the tree came along. In contrast to the muted shades, the simplicity and the inhabitants of the house, the tree looked vibrant, extravagant and ready to deliver the cheer of Christmas to any room it was placed in.

Needless to say, Sirius had stopped to take a good, long stare at the tree at least five times in the past seven hours. Remus tried not to be jealous. They'd had a pretty simple day, nothing too over the top.

Breakfast was a little late, given that most of the morning was spent by the two of them snoring their heads off. They'd skipped lunch and had gone straight for an early dinner. Dinner wasn't much, per say, but it was satisfactory. It was the only thing Remus knew how to properly cook to save his life- mashed potatoes and chicken, the world's two most generic dishes. Right now, a cheap bottle of wine waited to be opened up, and so were the two boxes of presents sitting under their Christmas tree. Remus hoped that maybe he could pass of the tree as their joint Christmas gift, a one they'd gifted to themselves.

Remus quietly nodded, and went to his room to look at his record shelf and find out a proper record to celebrate their most recent escapade, and be fifty parts reminiscent and fifty parts cheerful too.

He couldn't find anything, so he went to the only other place he knew he could find something appropriate. The shed outside his house, which hadn't been visited by Remus in a long, long time. Remus didn't want to acknowledge the foreign feeling of anticipation as he pried open the dusty lock, whispering a long lost 'Alohomora' at the door. Surprisingly, the spell allowed the lock holding his memories back to immediately open up too.

Ah. The Forbidden Room of Memories.

Lily's letters, James' second year glasses they'd charmed to get its lenses tinted pink permanently. Sirius' quidditch Jersey, photographs of Sirius and Remus at a David Bowie concert, another photograph of Remus and Sirius watching the quidditch world cup back when they were still at Hogwarts.

Remus had hated that room for more than ten years.

Ten years of hatred, yet, today he felt...inexplicably unfeeling. As of all that had transpired, everything the photographs stored within them, was finally accepted by Remus as a part of who he was. As if the big gap between the last photo Remus could remember smiling in being taken in 1980, Harry's birth.

Remus obviously wasn't around during his first birthday. He didn't want to think about it.

Rushing past all the unnecessarily cramped boxes, Remus arrived take a sole box dumped in the corner labelled 'Mirage'. Remus knew what kind of a mirage he'd meant to remind himself of whenever he were ever to contemplate opening that box anytime in the future, like today. A mirage which seems promising, but always ended up leaving you battered and bruised. Both physically, mentally and soulfully.

Remus braved himself, standing in front of that box, to pry it open, still seething in a somewhat state of denial and a phantom ache in the left side of his chest.

He finally dared to look inside.

Shuffling around, Remus tried not to think about Abbey Road, or A Night At The Opera, or Lovedrive, or Never Mind The Bollocks, or Stairway To Heaven. No, he was searching for a single, specific album.

America by America.

It was the December album of 1977 that no one seemed to be talking about. Remus wasn't all that up for music, and the Christmas holidays weren't anything to die for. So, he packed his bags and started for James' almost immediately after he'd received a letter from him the previous day and decided to make this a small road trip, enjoying it while it lasted. Somewhere along, he had to make a stop at a local gas station, and it was there that he'd heard that one song for the first time.

_I've been through the desert on a horse with no name,_

_It felt good to be out of the rain._

_In the desert you can remember your name,_

_'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain._

Standing there in the aisle, deciding which packet of crisps to take along with him, Remus heard the lyrics. Heard them for the first time and he realized that if not to anyone, the song seemed too good to be true. Remus himself had always felt like a horse with no name, no destination, and no identity. Was he human? Was he an animal? Was he better off left alone where no one could give him any pain?

People pretended to know him sometimes, but they didn't acknowledge truly how different he was from them. How far apart he stood from normal.

And then, there seemed, for a little while, that Remus had finally found someone. A fellow traveler, ebbing along with him towards the end of the world. They both didn't like dealing with things, both were a bit lost and both had a lot of unspent pain of rejection in them. Sirius knew pain better than the rest. Resultantly, he knew Remus better than the rest.

Still, sometimes things don't work out the way you hopefully expect them too. None of your crying, moaning, desperate calls can ever do anything to make life change its course. It was life itself than finally made you realize that until now, you were living in a mirage.

Trying to get these omnipresent thoughts out of his mind, Remus took the album out of its box. Usually, he'd share good music with his friends back at Hogwarts whenever he discovered any. If he thought really hard, he might even recall never telling anyone about this unheard album, which he'd brought in London and stashed away at the bottom drawer at his own flat. He didn't remember listening to it, ever, but he did recall the occasional want to do so, especially during the first war.

Sighing, Remus finally took an album.

"Wow, I remember this song." Sirius recalled, nostalgia and maybe a little bit of lisp mixed in his voice. Remus quietly shifted away the bottle, far from his reach.

"That's great." Remus smiled.

"You should smile more often." Sirius mentioned with genuine observation. "Don't always have to keep your professor mode turned on, you know."

"I'll try." Looking around, Remus saw the time. The clock read one. "Christmas is over, I think, Sirius."

"I hope not. I really did wish for something and it hasn't been fulfilled yet."

Remus could see the want in Sirius' eyes but he couldn't bring himself to senses right now. Even he wanted to get lost, in a memory, in a person, in a moment.

But he was alone. And maybe Sirius could help him, maybe they could be thirty somethings living together in the middle of Fucking Nowhere, stealing trees on Christmas as a ritual until their backs ache of old age and their hair became too white to provide cover in the black night.

Remus sighed, got up, and took the needle off.

The music stopped. Time didn't.

**Author's Note:**

> Fa La-La-La-La  
> La-La-La-La  
> (Soo bad)  
> Follow me on tumblr:  
> [Click here ](https://everyb0dywantst0rulethew0rld.tumblr.com/)


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